Plenary Meeting Notes

Meeting convened at 8:10AM at the Conference Suite at Napier University.

Introductions around the table: Deana Pennington, Bill Michener, Nico Franz, Rich Williams, Bertram Ludaescher, Ilkay Altintas, Efrat, Robert (Napier), Raja, Dan Higgins, Sam Romanello, Kristin Vanderbilt, Trevor, Jessie Kennedy, Mark Schildhauer, Matt Jones, Chad Berkley, Ferdinando Villa, Rod Spears, Shawn Bowers

BEAM: (Bill Michener) Gave formal presentation on Ecological Niche Modeling, and SEEK/BEAM. General Circulation Change Models (GCM, global climate model). SEEK/BEAM group decided to develop prototype application to mammals of Western Hemisphere.-- 2-3 dispersal cenaiors, 2 computing algorithms (GA & NN) and 15-20+ GCM scenarios, including IPCC scenarios (Bill has nice PPT presentation of all these points). 2000-3000 spp. Identified "Grand Challenge" problem. Next meeting December 15-17, 2004.

AMS: (Matt Jones) Identified Ptolemy as modeling framework. Customized as "Kepler" with contributions from Chad, Efrat, Ilkay. Live demo of Kepler running Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model created by Rich. Rich raises issue of need to improve UI of Kepler to make model creation easier. Also showed example of generating XY plot of "data" based on EML metadata description of the dataset. Are currently few data in Ecogrid, but Kepler can connect to these. Is problem getting metadata along with the raw data. Will also hook Kepler up to the DiGir resources-- not yet done. Are some big interface challenges for Kepler. Matt then showed hierarchical nature of workflows-- workflows nested within actors of other workflows. For GARP, need to help locate and preprocess data -- Chad is doing by wrapping some GRASS capabilities (like clipping, sampling)-- is partially done. Also demo'ed Ilkay's PIW (promoter identification workflow) which calls WEb services like Genbank and Blast. Still working on basic functionality, then later optimization and distributed computing aspects of Kepler. Are shifting efforts off of EcoGRID and more onto Kepler. Bing more onto SMS, Dan onto Kepler (from Morpho). Is alpha release of Kepler on kepler.ecoinformatics.org.

SMS: (Bertram Ludaescher) PPT-- SMS provides smart data discovery, smart connections, smart data integration (query rewriting) . Must clarify what "uses" and what "provides" among SMS/AMS/EML/EG. Clarify how ontologies and EML go together, etc. Lots of SMS products: semantic registration, query rewriting, reasoning services. GEON, SciDAC/SDM/SPA, Ptolemy II linkages. Sparrow toolkit: lean syntax to get around XML complexities, lean syntax for OWL/RDF.

EcoGRID (Raja) Is EcoGRID registry running. Phase I is complete. Need to enable "put" operations. (Rod) Struggle with GLOBUS framework-- is secure, but that security keeps it from working.

TAXON (Jessie Kennedy) At Napier, are refining model of taxonomic concepts. Presented at TDWG in Lisbon last Oct., but are interested in developing a common transfer schema for taxonomic concepts. Want to develop some taxonomic name resolution service for SEEK. Is problem getting unique binomial names, so with taxonomic concept server, can get behind multiple meanings of names. Matt raises point that need to link taxonomic issues that BEAM will encounter. Must be clearer about how TNS fits in with EcoGRID, and must make better links with SMS since are exploring some use of OWL for some smaller taxonomic hierarchies.

KR (Mark Schildhauer) Primary activity has been a joint mtg with BEAM/AMS/KR/SMS at Sevilleta in Feb. 2-6, 2004. Identified heuristic value of ontologies to clarify scientific debate, need to use ontologies to index and locate capabilities in Kepler. Deconstructed in detail the GARP workflow, clarified what specific GIS functions are necessary in Kepler (Chad addressing with GRASS).

Shawn: need to visualize and access stuff like OWL ontologies-- no notion of knowledge base. Bertram: we need to know exact results from EcoGRID. Matt: these aren't quite ready, but later this afternoon we can do this. Matt: how do we engage BEAM scientists. MarK: Deana would be great for this since she knows the ECN procedures . Deana: yes could do, along with Samantha. Also, use of the "ecological exercises" would enable us to get feedback from ecologists. Rich: problem is there are major UI issues with Kepler and these educational modules. Mark: but Kepler hackathon was proposed by Chad to work to improve this, and this just happened.

Matt: will do walkthru of Kepler along with Sam and Deana. Could provide us with good feedback.

Rod: have to have interface that engages in 15 minutes.